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Oswald Never Possessed a Mannlicher-Carcano: More from Evica

More from And We Are All Mortal: New Evidence and Analysis in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1975; University of Hartford), by George Michael Evica.

Chapter One, pages 7-10

Did Oswald Ever Possess Any Rifle?

Marina Oswald was the [Warren] Commission’s sole witness cited for the Report’s conclusions that Oswald possessed a rifle before the alleged attack on General Edwin Walker and that the alleged rifle was moved from Dallas to New Orleans and from New Orleans to Irving, Texas. The Commission’s own records help to establish that no piece of the Oswalds’ luggage or any other container used in moving the Oswalds was large enough to hold the Commission’s disassembled rifle.
…

The Commission attempted to prove that a rifle was stored in the Paine’s garage prior to the assassination: it failed. Marina Oswald testified to the Commission that she had entered the Paine’s cluttered garage to look for parts to a baby crib; lifting a corner of a folded blanket on the floor, she said she saw part of a rifle stock (in another version of this incident Marina decided it was the barrel she had seen). But Marina’s testimony was not corroborated; she could not distinguish either between kinds of rifles or between kinds of pieces (rifles and shot-guns, for example) … When shown a rifle on November 22nd, at about 9:00 p.m., she was unable to identify it:

“Marina Oswald advised an Agent of this Bureau on November 22, 1963, that she had been shown a rifle at the Dallas Police Department … She advised that she was unable to identify it positively as the same rifle kept in the garage at [the] Paine residence … ”

Three months after the assassination, Marina’s memory improved so that on February 6th, 1964, when shown what the Commission alleged to be the same rifle, she said, “This is the fateful rifle of Lee Oswald.” But Sunday, September 6th, 1964 … the following odd exchange occurred:

Senator Russell: Did you testify that you thought this [CE 139] was Lee’s rifle that was shown to you?

Marina (translation): No – I’m sorry. As far as she knows about the arms, the rifle which was shown to her looked like the one he had.

Translator (Peter Gregory, an important member of the Dallas/Ft. Worth White Russian community) in English: Yes; That’s right.

Senator Russell: That’s all I asked her. That’s just exactly what I asked her.

Translator (in English): Yes, that’s right.

Most crucially, Marina’s testimony on the alleged assassination weapon was coached, altered, or corroborated by individuals associated with Jack Ruby, the Great Southwest Corporation, George de Mohrenschildt (who admitted consulting with a Dallas C.I.A. agent concerning Oswald), and two of de Mohrenschildt’s associates (the co-founders of a C.I.A.-subsidized Russian Orthodox church in Dallas). The F.B.I. reported that a Marina Oswald interview had taken place on February 18th, 1964, in the office of attorney William A. McKenzie, who had been recently associated with the law firm representing both the Great Southwest Corporation (owned by the Murchisons’ lawyers, the Bedford Wynne family, and the Rockefellers) and George de Mohrenschildt. The F.B.I. reported that:

“Marina said to her knowledge Oswald had only one rifle and that rifle is the one he maintained in the Paine Garage.”

But Mrs. Declan Ford (another member of the White Russian émigré group) admitted:

“… Mr. McKenzie didn’t know what they would talk about but he advised her [Marina], ‘They will ask you if there were two guns, you tell them there was one gun that was used … ’”

Peter Dale Scott found this involvement of the intelligence-oriented Russian émigré group in the transmission of Marina’s testimony ominous enough to suggest a House Select Committee investigation, pointing out that Peter Gregory altered Marina’s testimony on the rifle and supplied other details which were corroborated by Marina’s second interpreter – who, with Gregory, helped found an Agency-supported Orthodox parish. Details of Marina’s coached and altered testimony were echoed in statements given the F.B.I. by Charles Camplen and James F. Daley, employees of the Great Southwest Corporation.

William A. McKenzie, in whose office the February 18, 1964 Marina Oswald interview as recorded, and who Mrs. Declan Ford asserted had supplied Marina with the Line “ … there was one gun that was used,” had resigned from the Wynne family law firm to represent Marina Oswald. McKenzie had been a law partner of attorney Bernard Wynne whose law firm represented the Wynne/Murchison/Rockefeller Great Southwest Corporation – at whose motel Marina Oswald was hidden by the Secret Service.

While acting as Marina’s lawyer, McKenzie was associated with attorney Peter White, who in 1954 arranged for the dismissal of charges against Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission ignored the fact that Peter White’s name, address, and phone number all appeared in Jack Ruby’s notebook – Peter White, the office mate of Marina Oswald’s attorney and representative – though the Commission questioned Ruby’s roommate George Senator about other entries in that same notebook.

With evidence available of coached and altered Marina Oswald testimony on the very existence of a weapon and on that weapon’s characteristics, directly traceable to individuals associated with an organized crime figure (Jack Ruby) and with the C.I.A. (George de Mohrenschildt), Marina’s uncorroborated testimony on a “rifle” must remain dubious and suspect.

Thanks for this GM piece Charlie. I have long thought that Ms. Oswald- Porter holds a lot of keys to this travesty. Once upon a time she was even speaking out. But two years ago a researcher friend named Floyd Stephens struck up a friendship with her husband. To this end Floyd sent Mr. Porter information relating to the murder of Henry Marshall, allegedly by "LBJ hitman Mac Wallace". Floyd also sent other documents, including part of a manuscript of his own. The last time Floyd and I spoke he told me that when he called Mr. Porter Marina intercepted the call, telling him she had thrown out the package and that they "wish not to be involved".

Two weeks later Floyd would be dead. Heart attack on New Years day- age 42.